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Beyond Melancholy: Sadness and Selfhood in Renaissance England (Emotions in History) by Erin Sullivan, (Cultural historian) is a work of fiction available to read on EtoBox.

What is Beyond Melancholy: Sadness and Selfhood in Renaissance England (Emotions in History) about?

"From Shakespeare's Hamlet to Burton's Anatomy to Hilliard's miniatures, melancholy has long been associated with the emotional life of Renaissance England. But what other forms of sadness existed alongside, or even beyond, melancholy, and what kinds of selfhood did they help create? Beyond Melancholy explores the vital distinctions Renaissance writers made between grief, godly sorrow, despair, and melancholy, and the unique interactions these emotions were thought to produce in the mind, body, and soul. While most medical and philosophical writings emphasized the physiological and moral dangers of the 'dis-ease' of sadness, warning that in its most extreme form it could damage the body and even cause death, new Protestant teachings about the nature of devotion and salvation suggested that sadness could in fact be a positive, even transformative, experience, helping to humble believers' souls and bring them closer to God. The result of such dramatically conflicting paradigms was a widespread ambiguity about the value of sadness and a need to clarify its significance through active and wilful interpretation--something this book calls 'emotive improvisation'. Drawing on a wide range

Who reads Beyond Melancholy: Sadness and Selfhood in Renaissance England (Emotions in History)?

Author

Erin Sullivan, (Cultural historian)

Publisher

IRL Press at Oxford University Press

Published

2016

Language

EN

ISBN

9780198739654

Category

work of fiction

Subjects

Literary Fiction, History, Humanities

Rating

5 / 5 (2 ratings)

Updated

2026-03-14